Racism against Northeast students reduced due to PM's outreach: Assam CM

Giving credit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the reduction in "discrimination against students of the northeast", Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has said the progress took place due to the PM's outreach to the region in the last few years.

The remarks of the Chief Minister came while addressing a press conference on Wednesday where he said that such discrimination against the students has "gone down to a huge extent".

"If you look at the last 2-3 years, because of PM Modi's huge outreach to the northeast now racial discrimination against students of the northeast has suddenly gone down to a huge extent," Sarma said.

Later in the day, the Assam CM took to Twitter to laud PM Modi's "visionary leadership", and said that he has "repositioned India as a strong global power".

"A new wave of growth & development has swept across NE in the past 8 years under Adarniya @narendramodi ji's guidance. On behalf of the people of Assam, I express my heartfelt gratitude to Hon'ble PM for unlocking NE's potential, making it new engine of India's growth," he tweeted.

Earlier, Sarma on Wednesday said that the State Cabinet will decide by August 15 on a separate classification for indigenous minorities who have not migrated to Assam from other places.

The chief minister said, "We are in process of identifying another set of minority people who are not migrated to Assam, their origin to this soil. The committee which was constituted for this purpose has given us certain parameters that who should be considered an indigenous minority. I think the cabinet will come to a decision on this before August 15."

"Muslims are recognized as minorities as of now along with Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and other communities irrespective of their migration status. Till the Supreme Court does not make any other interpretation, whoever is following Islam they are the minority as per the definition of the Minority Commission. There is no problem to identify it. But, Assam is on another journey to identify the indigenous minority," Sarma added.